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Monday, October 6, 2008

The Longest Yard

I went to a village which is nearby Borneo Highland Resort and met with its community leader. Actually, it was just a cordial visit to his house as I was on leave. My strong desire to know what is the real story behind the affected areas and compensation on fruit trees and paddy farm. The affected areas covered Annah Rais, Pangkalan Ampat, Kiding, Semuti, Sadir, Sapit and others and the said affected area are NCR lands.

The community leader picked-up a meeting minute written by a staff of Borneo Highland Resort dated July 2007. It main agenda is the compensation rate and date of payment to the affected community. The Project Manager said that all the affected area (NCR lands) will be compensated based on the rate given by the state government and all the fruit trees are compensated based on the price agreed by the community leaders during the meeting.

It seems to me that the NCR lands are now well taken care at that area after years of overlook. Somehow, the compensation has not been delivered due to no any land survey have been made. I do not know why should it take years to deliver the compensation since the company has agreed to compensate the affected land and crops?

The Bidayuh has been marginalizing by their leaders and this statement will make me as another Bidayuh traitor and nut. James Dawos, Bengoh MP and Jerip cannot work together to settle down this issue because these two are from different political party. As a result, the community leaders will only listen to the meeting and never get their NCR land and crops compensated. This is the turmoil in the Bidayuh politic and their leaders gave no attention into it. Many projects have been completed with no agreement between the representatives and the community like Borneo Highland Resort and Mambong dump sites. I do not know if the CMS clinker project was agreed by the community of its surrounding area. If you pass by the Mambong area by bike you can smell a “fragrance” of rubbish at about 5 miles in radius. That was the greatness of Bidayuh sacrificial which never benefited tem at all.

Annah Rais Hot Spring and Long House home stay and eco-tourism are now dying as there is no any improvement made by the government. My wife paid Rm 5.00 when we enter the Hot Spring and there were many visitors on that day. I believe that it has its potential to welcome more visitors. Somehow, the facility is not really that good as the NCR land “owner” has no fund to improve his hot spring ponds.

The NCR land issue will never end as the Bidayuh leaders are muted and dump. Taib will never develop them unless; they converted to other “religion” as it is stated in the Barisan Nasional development package.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

TBS,

We Bidayuh is to be blame for all this. Why do I say so? In within each village there is crisis, people don't get along with others. The Bidayuh would work very well with other races, trust them & treat them better than their own family members but is totally the opposite when it comes to getting along Bidayuh & Bidayuh.

This issue needs to be address and I bet you I is not easy. We would always look for someone to blame when problem arises.

My conclusion is our Bidayuh community is easily manipulated because of personal greed.

Each sect of Bidayuh such as Bianah, Bisapug, Bistang, Biperoh and etc need a representative to form a so called an association to replace DBNA as I see DBNA function never think of this. It is a very long & difficult process but it needs to carried out in order to save our community.

Petag tukuk folk.

Anonymous said...

Really don't know what else to say about the Bidayuh negative traits. I believe education is the key for the general Bidayuh community to progress. And why do we keep on electing incompetent leaders who really betray us in the end.

Anonymous said...

How to be competent if greed is above everything!! Every time they did something, is either due to popularity purpose or they expect to get paid. They isn't any word of charity in Bidayuh dictionary. Anyway we can't even have a common dictionary what do you expect.

We cannot agreed to one common language because there isn't any community who wanted to sacrify not even the elected leaders.

Anonymous said...

This is a mundane issue. Had it not for the development of the Borneo Highland, you folks would not have enjoy a good road all the way up to your village and Anah Rais.

Well had your land been acquire for the development of the Borneo Highland. Was it gazetted by the Land and Survey. Remember Borneo Highland is not a government and it is owned by a private entity. If there is any NCR land I am sure the landowners would readily accepted the compensation splashed by the company to them. Remember their land are useless, the land is not planted with any friuts. The terrain is very hilly and I am sure you would not like to farm your land on hilly grounds. Had those land that you mention is good for farming, I am sure the land owners would have planted it with either rubber, pepper or even turn it to an ochard.

Can you tell me how big was the land acquired for the Borneo highland cresort. Have you actually speak to the owner of the resort to find our. What you mention is nothing new, it is your wild guess. I remember the Biannah and the Tibiya were after each other head because of the Borneo Highland Resort project, but after a check with land and survey, it was found out there was no NCR claim at the top of Gunung Penrisen. Of course, you can claimed that your granfather owned the mountain, but what are you proof? If you have the proof, you can apply for a writ to the high court and stake your claim.

The government has no loci to improve the Kampong Anah Rais long house, the owners of the long house themselves have to improve theor own longhouse. If the government start to improve Anah Rais long house what happened to the other Iban longhouses throughout Sarawak, what happen to the Kayan longhouse, the Kelabit longhouse or the Penan longhouse. Asking the government to improve the longhouse shows that you don't know how the government works. If you care for them why don't you initiate a project to restore the longhouse. why ask the government? Even if Anwar Ibrahim becomes the Prime Minister and even if you become the Chief Minister I am sure you too cannot improve Kampong Anah Rais Longhouse. For what?

As for the Hot Spring pond you mentioned, why don't you as a clever goon assist the poor land owner to write a propsal on how he could improve the services at the pool.

Anonymous said...

"Had it not for the development of the Borneo Highland, you folks would not have enjoy a good road all the way up to your village and Anah Rais."
You are damn right. Beggars like Bidayuhs cannot be choosy.

"Remember Borneo Highland is not a government and it is owned by a private entity."
Correction. It's joint-venture by LCDA and IOI-linked developer group from KL. Pet project by Taib and Mahathir, frankly speaking.

"Of course, you can claimed that your granfather owned the mountain, but what are you proof? If you have the proof, you can apply for a writ to the high court and stake your claim. "
Taib also cannot abuse in the name of LCDA to legit his own cause and fancy for that land area.

But anyway, Taib said he is the govt. Sounds like Robert Mugabe, one way for another.

Borneo Highlands will forever making loss(never disclosed to public) unless it turned into casino theme park with link roads crossing another mountain range to Bau on the north and slightly down south a link to Indonesia, making it three major access road to it.